The Heroine: A Bedtime Story

I undertook a journey in my mind
Turning back the spinning hands of time
To steal a glance into the visions of a child
To see perchance inside what wild
And gruesome monsters loomed
In the darker corners of his room
As quiet went the long dark night
Where ogres lay in wait just out of sight
To pluck the little sleeper from his bed
Through a wormhole drilled into his little head
The stillness soon began to swirl
And churn with creatures from another world
From out of nowhere they appeared
Things misshapen, unimagined, weird
A loathsome gremlin grabbed him by the throat
And this I heard it bellow, now I quote
“Come now for a bareback ride
On a wild-eyed nightmare to the other side”  
And off they sped, oh! what a terror
Careening crazed through a maze of error
Tumbling through the dim and awful gloom
Into a pit of fiendish demons, pestilence and doom
There in the dank and murky deep
In frightful throes of fitful sleep
The hiss of serpents hideous
A writhing mass ophidious
For which the hapless tyke let out a curdling scream
Entangled in the coils of a diabolic dream
All hope is lost, I had to look away
I could not bear to watch it end this way
But lo! his mother heard his anguished cries
Like a vengeful angel to his side, she flies
And with a dreadful oath as swift as breath
Defies the mighty Beast its kiss of Death
Bare knuckled pries the iron jaws of Hell
Snatches free her tiny prince from the Devil’s wicked spell
Now holds him safe and sound against her breast
Smooths his tousled locks with motherly caress
Coos him fast asleep again with lullaby
And stays the rest of night till dawn is nigh
I left them there in memory’s embrace
Never to forget my mom’s heroic grace
Of womankind and all maternal kin
Was none more fearless than my own through thick and thin